Generally, a refrigerator, an appliance for storing food at a low temperature, stores foods in a freezing manner or a chilling manner depending upon the kinds of foods.
Cool air for the refrigerator is generated by repetitive performance of a refrigeration cycle of compression, condensation, expansion, and evaporation of a refrigerant, and the cool air is supplied to the refrigerator continuously. The cool air supplied to respective chambers of the refrigerator thus is uniformly delivered throughout the interior of the refrigerator by convection to cool down the respective chambers to predetermined temperatures, so that food can be stored in the refrigerator at desired temperatures.
Such a refrigerator becomes larger and multifunctional according to users' various tastes and variation in eating patterns.
Hereafter, the configuration of a typical refrigerator will be described with reference to a drawing.
FIG. 1 is a front perspective view showing the configuration of a typical refrigerator.
Referring to FIG. 1, a main body 1 of the refrigerator is formed in an approximately rectangular shape, and has a storage space for storing food therein.
The storage space provided in the main body 1 is respectively formed of a freezing chamber 10 and a cooling chamber 20 by being partitioned into left and right sides. The freezing chamber 10 and the cooling chamber 20 are opened toward a front side of the main body 1. And, the opened front surfaces of the freezing chamber 10 and the cooling chamber 20 are selectively closed by a freezing chamber door 12 and a cooling chamber door 22 respectively mounted at the main body 1 to be rotatable rightwardly and leftwardly.
And, the front surfaces of the cooling chamber door 22 and the freezing chamber door 12 are respectively provided with a dispenser 14 and a refreshment center (e.g., so-called “home bar”) 24, for the users' convenience. Further, a control panel 30 is installed at the cooling chamber door 22 or the freezing chamber door 12, for controlling the operation and state of the refrigerator. The control panel 30 is provided with control buttons 32 for controlling the operation and state of the refrigerator with and a display 31 presenting the control state. Thus, the user can control the operation and state of the refrigerator by manipulating the control buttons 32.
However, the related art refrigerator has problems as follows.
First, it is required that the control buttons be manipulated so as to control the operation and state of the refrigerator. Thus, a user must move toward the refrigerator for the manipulation thereof, which causes the user's inconvenience.
Second, a plurality of manipulation buttons are provided to adjust various functions of the refrigerator. Here, the user must manipulate the manipulation buttons by referring to a manual.
Third, recently, various kinds of items are stored in a refrigerator as the refrigerator becomes larger and multifunctional. However, the related art refrigerator lacks a function for detecting information about the stored items, such as the kind of the storage item, the position of the storage item, etc., and thus, the user must find out the storage item or the storage position of an item of the same kind by relying upon his/her own memory.
Accordingly, requirement for a function of detecting the kind of a storage item and the storage position of the item increases.